Yeah yeah that’s them Samurai Pizza Cats or whatever. I was doing some fielding coaching there and hoping to get on the T20 circuit gravy train but no one seems to want an ex-wicket keeper as a fielding coach anymore they want bloody ex-base ballers as throwing consultants, someone else as a ground fielding tutor and another person as a bloody hand positioning expert and the like.

I put my profile out on iwantacricketcoach.com and I got no hits

I was down at the local cafe and I saw one of those hipster types who seems to spend their days growing their beards, drinking endless lattes and tapping on their smartphones. He was asking me how I perfected the half handlebar moustache and I gave him a few expert facial hair tips and in return he updated my profile:

I’m on facetime, tinder and googledocs now too.

Do you mean facebook and twitter?

Yeah those too. Anyway would you believe it the very next day I got an email from the Barbados Duck Bills in the Carribean Premeier League and they said they were in desperate need of a gloved artisan whisperer and could I fly over the next day.

Do you mean the Antigua Hawksbills?

Yeah probably. Anyway I’m island hopping around the Caribbean for the next 6 weeks!

Will you be watching the big contest this evening?

Oh king oath I will, I never miss Origin. I can’t stand those damn Queenslanders I’ll be rooting for the Blues over here in Jamaica.

I meant the Ashes.

Ah yes of course, I’ve had a look at the England line up and noticed a few things. Nealry everyone has a 4 letter noun as their surname and if they don’t it’s a verb!

The Poms have brought in a couple of newbies and they have 4 letters in both their names – Adam Lyth and Mark Wood.

The Poms XI looks like this

1. Lyth

2. Noun

3. Verb

4. Noun

5. Noun

6. Verb

7. Noun

8. Ali/Rashid

9. Adjective

10. Noun

11. Anderson

Their batting line up is missing a verb – Trott – and of course the guy with far too many peters in his name Kevin Peter Peitersen from Petermaritzburg. But what they lack in South Africans they have made up for in Zimbabweans with Gary Ballance coming in at number 3.

The revolving door at the top of the order to partner Captain Cook goes to Adam Lyth. I know nothing about him, he must be pretty good though if he’s nudged Michael Carberry out of the team…

The middle order is Bell and Root then Stokes is the allrounder and we know he can play because he’s a kiwi. Josh Buttler has..

You mean Jos Buttler.

If you are you going to keep interrupting me this is going to take a long time.

As I was saying JoshButtler has the gloves and looks solid – definitely better than Johnny Baristow!

As for the fast bowlers Broad and Anderson are there plus Steve Finn. Despite David Saker’s best efforts to ruin him as a bowler Finn has bounced back and may play or more likely just tour the country ala Australia in 2013/14.

Spinners. The Poms have gone down our path after Warnie retired and played a batsmen as a spinner. Mooen Ali is the incumbent but Adil Rashid the leg spinner could come in . Both are about as dangerous as Ashley Giles I reckon.

As for Australia well the team just about picks itself, the county pros – Rogers and Voges – have to play. That locks the top 5 – Warner, Rogers, Smith, Clarke and Voges. The only place in question is the allrounders spot but I think all of Australia would be disappointed if Watto didn’t play – everyone loves watching an enigma and you can’t beat a boundary laden 46 followed by an inexplicable dismissal for entertainment.

Hadds has the gloves of course then the bowlers are pretty settled now that Rhino is out – MJ, Starc, Hazlewood and Nath. Nath hasn’t been bowling great but he has great awareness that this is a test match and he needs to improve. Don’t be surprised if Sidds comes in for Lords – that slope has caused mayhem for the left armers in the past – Mitch in 2009.

I can’t believe this first test is in Cardiff – I still have nightmares about Pannesar and Anderson batting out for a draw in the first test in Cardiff in 2009 ! It cost us the series and the Ashes. And to think Marcus North made a century in that match!

A tip Steve?

New South Wales by 6 points. Ah cricket – Australia by plenty and look out for a very low scoring first innings – under 300 – for whoever bats first tonight.

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Being overseas from April 2007 I missed Phil Hughes’ half century on Shield debut in November 2007, I missed him becoming the youngest century maker in the Shield final in March 2008 at 19 years old, and I missed him being named Shield player of the season for 891 runs with 4 centuries in 7 matches in the summer of 2008/09 – I didn’t even know these facts until I read about them this week.

If I’d been in Australia, as an avid state cricket follower, I would have been all over this. I remember Michael Clarke piling up a big summer of Shield runs and Phil Jaques doing similar one year, before being called up to the national team.

I first remember hearing of Phil Hughes when he made his test debut, followed by twin hundreds in his second test, in South Africa. I was travelling in Africa the time and cricket news was difficult to come by – text messages to an Aussie mate in the UK was the best source and that was only on the odd occasion when phone reception was available.

As timing would have it I was in South Africa, Cape Town in fact, right when the third test of the series was being played there. Fresh from his twin centuries in the second test, in his third test Hughes scored twin 30’s. I went to the second day of the test and didn’t see Hughes bat, just Jacques Kallis and AB De Villiers destroying Bryce McGain in his only test.

After Africa, I headed back to London which was home base at the time. I might have missed Hughes’ run of Shield scores but what I didn’t miss was his amazing run of scores during his stint at English county team, Middlesex, prior to the 2009 Ashes.

I was job searching (unemployed) at the time so had some time on my hands and cricket was a great time filler. It felt like each day you would read about Hughes making a century. He made runs at Lord’s and at Southgate one of Middlesex’s county ‘outgrounds’, which was in the North London suburbs near where my housemate worked.

We said we’d get along to a game at Southgate or to the last day of the county match at The Oval, but didn’t make it to either (missing a great finish at The Oval). I did however make it along to Hughes’ last game for Middlesex at the home of cricket, Lords.

When I compiled this list I couldn’t believe Hughes’ stint at Middlesex was just four weeks long.

I went to Surrey v Gloucestershire at the Oval on May 13. Mark Ramprakash made a century on a pitch just 40m or so from one of the boundaries – the square leg umpire was half way between the stumps and the rope!

I went to this game – perhaps I should have gone the day before too. It was the only time I saw Hughes bat live. From memory the match had an unusual start time beginning at noon and finished early evening 7:30pm or so.

I remember Hughes and Owais Shah batting well and after Hughes went out, I nodded off sitting in a nearly empty stand. I also remember a flurry of boundaries bringing the game to an end in a successful run chase.

Jonathan Trott made 120 for the opposition, Warwickshire, but I don’t remember this. I do remember Trott making his test debut in the 5th Test at the Oval in August that year and making a century that won the Ashes.

Report from Cricinfo:

A fine 69 from Neil Dexter, along with blistering contributions from Phillip Hughes and Owais Shah, helped Middlesex chase down 277 to beat Warwickshire at Lord’s and keep their quarter-final hopes alive. Warwickshire’s challenging target was set up by Jonathan Trott’s superb 120 and a typically bullish innings of 68, from 44 balls, by Neil Carter. Middlesex lost Billy Godleman early before Hughes (57 from 43) and Shah (63 from 58) steadied their chase, but they then lost Dawid Malan and Eoin Morgan within one ball of each other. And when Trott pulled off a stunning one-handed effort to send Gareth Berg packing, Middlesex’s quarter-final hopes appeared to be over. But Ben Scott suddenly rediscovered his touch with 28 from 18 balls, and along with Dexter helped Middlesex over the line with three balls to spare. This was Hughes’s last match this season for Middlesex, a remarkable period in which he scored 882 runs, and he could yet be back at Lord’s for next season.
Hughes (who was 20 years old in 2009) opened the batting with Billy Godleman (himself also just 20 years old) in all but one game for Middlesex. The name stuck in my memory as I had seen Godleman make a half century in my only previous visit to Lords in 2007.

The similarities between the two 20 year old openers was clear: Godleman was also a prodigious talent at a young age being the second youngest débutante for Middlesex and gaining a county contract at just 17 years old.

Hughes didn’t return to Middlesex the following season, but he did play for Hampshire for a short stint late in 2010 and for Worcestershire in 2012.

List A, 50 over cricket for Middlesex:

8 matches, 8 innings, 308 runs at an average of 38.5 with a strike rate of 92.77, 1 century and 2 half centuries

Overall record for Middlesex:

20 days of cricket in 27 days.

882 runs in 11 matches at an average of 73.5, 4 centuries and 4 half centuries.

An amazing month with so much achieved in such a short amount of time, just like his life.

That’s my memory of Phil Hughes.

Footnote:

In the 2009 Ashes, I went to a day of the test at Lords, Hughes’ fifth test, but he didn’t bat that day and Australia performed dismally. I also went to the next test at Edgbaston, Birmingham but Hughes had been dropped. As in South Africa my timing wasn’t to be.

During his stint at Middlesex, Hughes’ record at Lords was outstanding: 4 matches, 5 innings, 433 runs at an average of 108.25, 2 centuries, 3 half centuries. However the venue was not a memorable one for him in test cricket.

Hughes scored 4 & 17 in 2009 and 1 & 1 in 2013 at Lords and was dropped from the Australian team after both matches.

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Chapter 16

Sacked!

Steve Rixon reacts to the mention of the name Pat Howard and cricket in the same sentence.

Me: Steve, I’ve heard the news.

Steve: Yeah I can’t believe Tom Triffit got arrested on two counts of stealing at 5am during a Futures League match. Futures league games are being treated like a joke, Test players playing for different states then being withdrawn after 2 days, players out on the gas during games. Bring back the 2nd XI competition by removing the age restrictions and fixture a decent set of 6-8 games rather than the current 4.

Me: Um, yeah. I was more thinking about your axing from the Australian coaching set up.

Steve: Look here you little runt, contrary to some scurrilous reports I haven’t been axed, Cricket Australia have decided to ‘prioritise resources’ regarding coaching and bring in short term consultants to fill my dual roles of fielding coach & spin coach. Do you know what a consultant is? It’s someone who travels further to work than you do. Well CA got it spot on with their fielding consultant – Mike Young is a baseball guru from the US, he must be an expert given how far he’s traveeled to take the job. Warney is the spin consultant, ill be interested how he goes working with Ashton Agar & James Muirhead developing their awareness of what real spin bowling is. Ha! At least Warney & Agar have something in common. They’re both bad boys after Agar got himself suspended from the WA team for dissent. Ha!

Happier days coaching Australia and chatting to Kyly

Anyway fair to say the exit interview I had with Boof & Patsy Howard got interesting. I’d just got off the Adelaide Oval from running another one of my revolutionary fielding drills – the isosceles triangle drill – when they approached me and told me I was surplus to requirements in the mens team. Well I lost my cool and smashed up all the isosceles fielding drill equipment, ranting at Patsy how he could take my job but he could never take my intelectual fielding property. I was pretty pissed off. Unsurprisingly Boof had his esky close at hand so we sat down and shared a frothie; had a chat about moving forward and how there were no hard feelings – basically we were having some quality esky time. But then Patsy returned with some HR forms on the Spirit of Cricket he reckoned I had to fill out. Well that was too much, I grabbed a couple of full stubbies out of the esky and got over to the nearby bowling machine, turned it up flat stick and started firing the stubbies at Patsy. He’d want to have been a good rugby player because he’s a shit cricket administrator and he’s shit at ducking and weaving 150km/h stubbies fired at him. He wore a couple of beauties to the groin, I was just disappointed I didn’t get in a head shot. Patsy can consider himself lucky too that the team has started winning so the heat has gone off him and whatever it is he does apart from interefering with the cricket team. Same goes for James Sutherland. Cricket Australia can go and get fucked as far as I’m concerned.

Pat Howard: Lucky to be alive let alone have a job at Cricket Australia

Anyway it’s not all bad news I’ve been prioritised out of the Australian men’s coaching set up and into the Australian Women’s team. In fact my first day working with them on their fielding, their spin and their awareness was Wednesday – the first T20. Unfortunately the Women didn’t do so well, what they really needed was to develop an awareness that if they lost that game they lost the Ashes. Not a great start to the coaching career- losing the Ashes – but it worked for Boof!

Fortunately the women’s T20s are being played as curtain raisers to the men’s so I was able to hang around and see the boys. What the hell is with Jade Dernbach? Is he the worst player England have brought out here since Ronnie Irani? And what are those tattoos? It looks like a frog on his chest and what is with his two sleeves? You can’t even see the design of the tattoo on his left arm – it’s like it’s just been coloured in. As for Stuart Broad complaining about small boundaries, fucking spare me! England has some of the smallest grounds going around, does he not remember Finchy belting 14 sixes in the T20 at the Rose Bowl? It was only 6 months ago. Broad just can’t help being a fuckwit can he?

Steve Rixon reacts to news that Jade Dernbach is playing for England

Talking about the T20 team, why were Cam White and James Muirhead not allowed to play for the Melbourne Stars on Monday? Instead they had to go to Bellerive to train with the Australian squad. What better training could there be for a T20 game than playing a Big Bash game! England let Luke Wright play. It doesn’t make sense when CA are trying to grow the BBL! Let the best players play. Another shithouse, brainless decision by the High Perfomance Manager, Patsy Howard the rugby player. It’s not a game of rugby dickhead, its cricket – you can play a T20 on a days break.

I was a little surprised I was the first to feel the effects of Cricket Australia and Patsy Howard ‘prioritising resources’ I really thought Invers would be the first to cop it in the neck particularly after he pulled out another bullshit squad for South Africa – Marsh & Doolan for fuck’s sake! Then he replaced Faulkner with Moises Henriques! Fuck off! It’s like the disastrous India tour all over again. Invers saved his job though by bribing Shaun Marsh to fake an injury so he could shoehorn Phil Hughes into the squad. It’s lucky Jackson Bird was passed fit otherwise who would Invers have replaced him with? Jake Behrendorf or Chadd Sayers? Invers, Rod Marsh and Andy Bichel would want to lift their game as selectors – their contracts are up in June. At least they’ve seen the light and put Brad Hodge in the T20 team but what’s the bet they drop him from the World T20 sqaud in March? Odds on I’d say.

Coaching career lowlight: presenting Moises Henriques with his Test cap. Thank goodness I won’t be on hand if Doolan debuts in South Africa

The best thing about no longer working with the men’s team is I no longer have to work with Matty Wade. It’s brilliant! It’s like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. If Australia pick Wade again they’ll need a specialist wicket keeping consultant but I won’t be offering my services. I’m quite happy with my fielding coach role at the Chennai Super Kings in the IPL and I’ve just scored a new short term role doing some remedial work with Tom Triffit.

Can you put $50 on Australia to win the T20 series 2-1?

Me: Why don’t you do it now you’ve been axed from coaching?

Steve: Look here you little runt, I’m still coaching the Women’s team and I want $50 on them to win the T20s 2-1.

Me: Alright you crusty old blighter I’ll put one last bet on for you but then we are done. You’re no use to me if you’re not on the inside of the Aussie team.

Steve: Like I said to Patsy during my exit interview, “Get fucked!” Just put the bet on. Also that stuff about me coaching the Women’s team was all spin. In fact pretty much everything I’ve ever told you is spin, so I hope that works out well for you. Also I knew you were tapping my phone, you can put a stop to that now. So if we’re all done, I’m sigining off – don’t call me again.

Me: Fair enough, see ya.

Relaxation time for Stever Rixon after he was axed as fielding coach, spin coach and occasionally head coach of the Australian Cricket team.

Chapter 15

The One Dayers

Australian Squad Selection

Me: Steve, how are the preparations going for the ODI in Perth?

Steve Rixon: Well we’ve brought over the Australia A team. No Clarke, Haddin or Watson and it looked like Bailey wasn’t going to overcome a hip complaint. He was named captain and Mitchy J vice captain of this A team but there was no way we were going to let Johnson actually captain the team. He may have won the Alan Border Medal on Monday night but he’s a fast bowler, not a captain so we put out an emergency SOS for Hadds to fly over and fill the leadership void. On the AB Medal, what the hell was with that venue? I felt like I was back at my high school graduation, I don’t know why we weren’t seated on tables but it seemed like I was going to have to toast Mitchy J’s victory without a drink. Luckily Boof had smuggled in an esky so we cracked a couple of VBs to celebrate Mitch’s win. You can rely on Boof to always have an esky with some cold ones handy when it’s needed.

Anyway Bailey passed a fitness test today so he’ll skipper the side and Hadds can have that well deserved rest. I was actually disappointed that Hadds wasn’t required as now I’m stuck working with that arrogant little Tassie turd, Matthew Wade. Thank goodness their’s only 2 one dayers left but unfortunately he’s also in the T20 squad so I’ll have to work with him for 5 games. Sigh – 12 days of Wade.

Talking about the T20 squad, what the NSP is going on? Who is this James Muirhead? I had to Google him to find out who he even played for. Seems he’s a professional tour match player, he’s played against England in 3 tour matches this summer but only played two T20 matches for the Melbourne Stars, yet he’s in the T20 squad for the games against England! Thanks Invers. Also Mitch Starc hasn’t played a single game of state level cricket this summer yet his in the T20 squad. How about he retunrs form injury by playing some state cricket first before we think about getting him back in the national team. Fark, I blame Invers and Patsy Howard, and seeing as we are in Perth I decided to pay a visit to my old mate, National Selector, John Inveratrity.

I dropped around to Invers house mid afternoon so I had to rouse him from his daily nap. Once I’d let him wake up and got him a cup of tea and his slippers I gave him a grilling.

This man selects Australia’s national cricket teams

Rixon: Invers what the Muirhead are you and you mates on the Selection Panel doing? Why are you picking all these no names and injured players for the T20s against England?

Invers: Look here my good man Stephen, we’ve got a scheduling issue with the South African Test tour. We’ve got to get the Test players over there whilst we’ve got the T20s against the Poms. We’ve got the World T20 coming up in March which we’ve never won so we needed to have the captain, George Bailey leading the T20 ship. He couldn’t be in two places at once so we’ve prioritised our resources and removed him from Test squad and we’ve thrown in a few no names to the T20 squad give them a taste while the big boys are away. It’s my new phrase to define the summer, ‘Prioritised our resources.’ It’s taken over from last season’s really successful catch phrase of ‘Informed player management’ We’re all pretty chuffed at the NSP with our new phrase we really think it will catch on.

These T20s aren’t going to get much coverage anyway as all the Englsih journo’s have to leave shortly as their visa only allows them to stay for 90 days and the tour is 100 days long – their missing the T20’s. I think the English journo’s should have ‘prioritised thier resources’ and had a few of them skip the first Test so they could cover these T20s.

Patty’s even sent the Test boys away sorry ‘Prioritised our resources ‘ to get the Test boys to play for different states in the Futures League to get some red ball cricket. Mind you only the first two days of the games then their off to South Africa.

Proiritisation of resources meant only some players could go on the roller coaster. George Bailey was selected as the roller coaster was a metaphor for his summer.

Rixon: Hmmm, I see. I seem to remember this same scheduling issues with the Indain tour last year when we sent the work experience kids over to play Tests, but I thought guys on the NSP had finally seen the light with the Ashes squads. You’d stopped picking blokes with ‘potential’ and started picking blokes with strong first class records, in good form, who can actually play!

You picked Chris Rogers with 65 First class hundreds and average of 50 and he repaid you with 3 centuries and he was the highest run scorer from both teams across the 10 Tests.

You chucked George Bailey into the test team with his 14 first class hundreds and average of 37 and you got exactly what you’d expect. Just one half century and 183 runs in total.

So why the fuck have you picked Shaun Marsh? His first class record makes Bailey look like Bradman! 8 centuries with an average of 35. He’s 34th on the Sheffield Shield run scorers this season!

Also why do you have a massive hard on for Alex Doolan? The bloke is shit – 6 tons and an average of 38. He’s possibly less deserving of a call up than Shaun Marsh, if that’s even possible. Yeah I hear these blokes look great when they bat but need I remind you that Chris Rogers and his armguard that hasn’t been washed since the Great Depression, doesn’t look pretty at the batting crease but he’s damn effective.

Personally I’d rather take a gritty, determined, unwatchable century over some of the great innings Australian Test debutantes seems to have been defined by in recent history. First their was Usman Khawaja’s awe inspiring and changing the face of cricket, 37 and then their was Rob Quiney’s magnificent debut 9. Actually I hope Doolan does make his Test debut and he gets a blob, that’s right it could be the ‘Great Doolan Debut Duck’. It would be such a inglorious achievement that in future, across all levels of cricket, a batsmen who was dismissed for zero would not have got a duck but would have got a Doolan.

I can see the conversations at the local cricket club now:

How did you go today, mate?

Nah, no good, got a Doolan.

Hahahaha that’s shit! Maybe you should give up playing cricket. A Doolan! That’s terrible!

Yeah no need to rub it in, I’m not as bad as Doolan.

Invers: Stephen, Shaun Marsh is in a good space at the moment and made 44 last time he was in South Africa. And need I remind you that Alex Doolan made 161 for Australia A against South Africa last summer.

Steve: Invers blow it out your arse. Every cricket follower in Australia is in a ‘good space’ – we just won the Ashes 5-0! It would be un-Australian if you weren’t in a ‘good space.’ Seeing as we are digging up the past Marcus North made a century last time he played Tests in South Africa and Phil Hughes made two – in the same test! And both of these guys have nearly made more Shield runs than Doolan & Marsh put together this season. North is the top run scorer and Phil Hughes is third, a little bit better placed than Doolan (17th) and Marsh. Are you sure you didn’t mean Mitch Marsh? Even he’s made more runs than Shaun.

John Inverarity tries to find Alex Doolan and Shaun Marsh on the Sheffield Shield top run scorers list.

And one last thing about Doolan, can he just stop this nonsense about having different bats for different formats. It’s pissing me off. Actually I’ve noticed that there is a massive over representation of Tasmanian’s getting Test call ups of late. First their was Ed Cowan, then Jackson Bird, followed by James Faulkner then George Bailey and now it looks like Alex Doolan is destined to get a Baggy Green. It makes me wonder when they hand out the Baggy Tassie’s these days are they just a Baggy Green with the Tassie logo velcored over the top, so it can be ripped off when the inevitable Australian call up comes? Hmmmm. Who’s next Mark Cosgrove? Jordan Silk? Actually I wouldn’t mind seeing Silk getting a call up, he’s actually making runs!

Can we get back to picking blokes with strong domestic records who are in good form rather then picking blokes who look good or who have potential? Need I remind you of how the Indian series turned out last year when we built our team around Moises Henriques and Glen Maxwell opening the batting and bowling.

My only hope is that the Unchangeables live up to their moniker and Doolan and Marsh both get injured – they both have dodgy backs. Also, why are you filling the squad with spare batsmen who are both Number 3s? We’ve finally got Watto settled in at Number 3, a position where he’s useful, what we need is a Number 6 batsmen. Hell, we could do worse than looking at Cameron White.

Invers? Invers? Wake up!!

Me: So did you get any answers about Doolan?

Rixon: No Invers had nodded off somewhere along the line. I think that’s part of the issue of having a semi senile old duffer as a national selector. That and fucked up selections. Anyway I’m off to lock horns with Matty Wade again. Can you put $20 on Wade to drop a catch in Perth?

Chapter 15 – Part I

The One Dayers

The England Support Staff Dissected

Steve Rixon: Well England have rolled up with a pretty ordinary One Day team, some pretty old school, unimaginative tactics and the same old, out of form captain.

Team England would be better off picking their best players in their One Day squad – Anderson & KP, for example (I’m not sure they realise there is a World Cup here in 12 months time) – rather than touring around the country with a support staff as big as their squad. 16 support staff for 16 players – it’s nonsense. I was able to get the inside word on what these 16 support staff do.

1. Coach: Ashley Giles. Well not doing much actually, except continually picking the wrong team with no spinner, batting Jos Buttler too low and persisting with Cook.

2. Batting coach: Graham Gooch – yeah not doing a whole lot either, as shown by England great batting performances on this tour. Working extensively with Cook to get his power game back….

Gooch to Bopara: “But when you bat don’t just shadow bat with your arm like me, use the bat.” Bopara just looked dumbfounded.

3. Fast Bowling Coach: David Saker – hailed as some sort of hero in England but he has really struggled with getting the fast bowlers up and firing in Australia particularly his three tall fast bowling Amigos: Tremlett, Rankin and Finn.

4. Spin Bowling Coach: Mushtaq Ahmed. Look at the wonders he has worked with Swann (premature retirement), Monty Panesar (probably should retire, seems he prefers Tinder to cricket) and of course the recent debutantes who struggled to get it on the cut stirp Scott Borthwick and Simon Kerrigan. A+

5. Fielding coach: Richard Halsall. Born in Zimbabwe (of course) Halsall’s mantra is ‘physicality, precision and sacrifice’ This has nothing to do with fielding or cricket, it’s just his mantra. Michael Carberry is his best student. (Think Adelaide)

Richard Halsall: Right, plant your feet apart and hold the bowl over your head like your going to throw a spear.

6. Wicket Keeping Coach: Bruce French. He has done an excellent job with Prior and Bairstow, perfecting the dropped catch, the missed stumping and the never dive for a catch toward first slip. Top notch.

7. Video Analyst: Gemma Broad – Yes, Stuart Broad’s sister is the team’s video analyst viewing hours of footage to discover flaws in players. Hmm, perhaps she should start with her brother’s sense of sportsmanship and time wasting.

Gemma Broad films as England train to the right

8. Strength and Conditioning: Mike Gatting. Yes a little known fact that ‘Fat Gatt’ is England’s strength and conditioning coach after Graeme Gooch put in a good word for him. Actually it’s looking like the pair may swap roles soon, given Gooches glorious run as batting guru.

Mike Gatting introduced kick around soccer games as warm-ups for Team England

9. Nutritionist. Seen as the most important role in the England cricket team and expertly justified their employment by producing the 80 page dossier on the team’s food requirements. Invaluable.

10. The Chef. He is up early every morning on tour to get down to the market to source the finest and freshest local produce to make the 80 pages worth of recipes. Seen as one of the most important role in the England cricket team despite it having absolutely nothing to do with cricket.

12. Integration officer. With so many non-English born players in the England team it’s critical that there is someone who can overcome any cultural differences that may crop up and help the players to pick a Premier League team to follow so they seem English.

13. Social media manager. Traditionally the media manager made sure press conferences and player interviews went smoothly with this England team the role changed to checking that Greame Swann, Tim Bresnan and KP hadn’t put anything inapropriate on Facebook or Twitter. And hacking into KP’s text messages. Their workload has been reduced by 80% with Swann’s retirement.

14. Uniform manager/Embroider. Responsible for supplier all players with thier appropriate playing and training kit. Did a good job in the tests but then screwed up in the one dayers and brought some red coke can outfit instead of their usual blue. Apperantly it’s so the players don’t get confused with the support staff who are all in blue outfits. Also embroidered 39 on Ravi Bopara’s one day cap, he’s number 202. Close.

16. Support Staff. Every good team needs a support network, and the England Cricket team Support team is no exception. The role includes many and various responsibilities to support the Support Staff. It makes sense. Team England are thinking of expanding this role to become Support Staff Manager to coordinate all the support staff and to manage two Support Staff Assistants.

16 support staff for 16 players yet none of them could help Steve Finn and he was sent home. He’s issues sound intriguing:

“In terms of the technical things, they are not massive things. I’ve aligned my run-ups – my run-ups are nice straight line to the crease now – I did a lot of work on that last summer – and it’s just about getting the timing of my arms and legs working at the same time. Sometimes a little thing can throw you out on either of those things but once my arms and my legs start working together again I feel I can come out of this a better bowler.”

It sounds like he’s lost the coordination of his arms and legs required to walk let alone run in to bowl. What the England cricket team really need is a coordination coach, to teach their players like Finn who come through first class cricket uncoordinated, how to get their arms and legs working simultaneosuly. It’s clearly what their missing from their line up of support staff and their support staff are clearly not meeting their players needs given Finn has now had his papers stamped ‘not selectable’

Finn’s problems started when he kept clipping the stumps at the non strikers end with his hand just before he delivered the ball. The ICC even changed the rules to make it a no ball after Graeme ‘Muppett’ Smith complained a lot. Anyway I spoke to ‘The Bowling Whisperer’ that’s Craig McDermott in case you didn’t know, about how to fix the problem. He said it was pretty simple Finn needed to move wider on the crease, away from the stumps and then he wouldn’t hit them any more. It made me wonder what the hell David Saker is doing with these guys!

Anyway despite all England’s troubles we’ve played pretty well. Particularly James Faulkner – that was pretty special in Brisbane – it was definitely his ‘Bevan’ moment.

Me: That was an amazing finish. What about some of the Australian squads selected?

Steve Rixon: Mate, I’m going to see Invers tomorrow, get back to me then. Can you put $50 0n Australia to win the series 5-0?

Chapter 14

The Fifth Test, Sydney Cricket Ground

The Unchangeables, Debutantes and 5-0 Whitewash.

Steve Rixon: What do you want you little runt? Do you know what time it is?

Me: It’s 2:15pm

Steve: Ah I see. On what day?

Me: It’s Wednesday.

Steve: Shit!? What the fark happened to Monday & Tuesday? Last thing I remember I had just been esky showered by the boys in the SCG change rooms. That’s the last thing I remember and that was Sunday night…. I think. It’s an oldie but a goodie the old esky shower. It’s origins date back to the 1983/4 tour of the West Indies when we use to throw an esky of ice on the team manager after we’d finished all the beers at the end of a days play. He use to love it, whatever his name was – anyway the tradition lives on.

Another tradition that was great to see was the English team came into the sheds for a chat and share a drink. All of them are actually good blokes, even Stuart Broad, but I did wonder why Keven Peitersen came in with his Ipod headphones in and whenever anyone went up to talk to him said, ‘I can’t hear you, I’ve got headphones in.’ He’s definitely his own man. I got around a few of the Englsih blokes and had a chat. I was giving Johnny Bairstow a few pointers on wicket keeping, things on feet positinioning, how to catch the ball using gloves and a few other basics such as a keeper should always dive for catches between him and first slip. He was looking at me blankly the whole time and I can only guess he didn’t understand a word of what I was saying or he wasn’t listening. I also punched Michael Carberry in the guts for dropping that dolly from Haddin in Adelaide. I then bet him $50 if I recreated the catch with a stubby, he’d drop it again, sure enough I underarmed him a VB out of the esky and he fluffed it and it smashed on the floor. I don’t think my training techniques would work with the English guys somehow.

The original odd couple: Boof with a stubbie, Pup with a bottle of champers. Both caught well as I threw their drinks at them from the esky though.

I can’t say some of the other things that happened on Sunday night were traditional. Shit certainly got weird. It started on the podium at the presentations. Clarkey and Sidds were pretty happy to get the replica urn back, I think Sidds was seeing vision of bananas and just wanted to inhale it. Not sure. I knew Clarkey and Sidds were close but yeah.

Surprised team mates look on as Sidds & Pup lock lips around the urn. Siddle: Must resist the urge and just kiss the urn.

Nathan Lyon and Clarkey are also pretty close, they were like a couple of playful 10 year olds. It’s hard to picture Mark Taylor and Warney doing this but times change I guess.

Nathan Lyon play wrestles with Michael Calrke to get hold of the urn

Anyway that was Sunday night and probably Monday too, I can’t really recall I really do have a hangover of biblical proportions.

Me: Fair enough. What about the Test?

Steve: Well I reckon our celebrations had more effort and concentration put into them than Englands two batting displays: 20 wickets falling in 90.3 balls, just over a days play or a day and a session if you’re the England cricket team. One of my biggest bugbears is slow over rates – it really grinds my gears. And England are the absolute masters at it, slowing the game down for any and every reason under the sun. It’s just about the only thing Alistair Cook is actually good at, his batting is shot a the moment, his captaincy is about as innovative and inspiring as my jocks but the one thing he does do well is pointlessly change the field whilst having long discussions with the bowlers. Stuart Broad is his trusty right hand man in all this caper and has really master the art of timewasting. He got the square of turf replaced in the bowling run up, taking 15 minutes, and then bowled from wider on the crease the next ball and didn’t even run over the new turf! Aaagh, give me strength – what next?

Another delay: Stuart Broad take time out from cricket to audition for Seventh Heaven

Gary Balance has obviously been heavily indoctrinated in the time wasting ways. Mitch Johnson badged him and took a full ten minutes for England to get him a new helmet, messing around with grills and stuff. Get on with it! To think this game probably could have been over by Lunch on Day 3 if England could bowl 90 overs in 6 hours of play. One final delay was caused by my mate Carbs having to get a new bat after Ryan Harris broke his. I’m not sure if I’ve told you before but Ryan Harris bowls an incredibly heavy ball and is known as a bat breaker due to the fact that he bowls an unbelievably heavy ball. Now there is proof of just how heavy a ball Ryano bowls.

Team selection was pretty easy after Invers added Alex Doolan to the squad. Boof rang Doolan to have a chat before he joined the squad and Doolan said he’d be late joining the squad because he’d have to fly back to Tassie to get his red ball cricket bats. Boof told him that if you have to fly interstate to get a cricket bat you might as well stays there but unfortunately Doolan didn’t get the message and he turned up the next day. I asked Invers why he added Doolan to the squad, given his modest returns in Shield cricket and not Hughes, given his prolific runs at Shield level? Invers looked stunned, “My good man,” he said “Hughes retired in 1994.”

Hughes? No, he’s not on my list. He’s been retired since 1994.

George Baileys spot might be under pressure because his batting isn’t up to Test standard, but he is on world record pace for catching. In 10 Test innings he’s taken 10 catches and dropped another, even the great fielders average about 0.8 catches per innings. If Bails can play 100 odd tests he could break all sorts of catching records!

Talking about fielding it was great to see a couple of our fielding moves pay dividends. Bails took a catch at short mid on, standing next to the pitch and Nathan Lyon caught Carberry at legslip off Mitchy J. We’ve been derided for having a leg slip in place for the pace bowlers for most of the series, particularly by armchair experts in the stands in Brisbane, but it worked this time.

England were the exact opposite reverting back to their tried and true formula, the Empire XI. I guess it made sense, last time they won here three years ago they had a quota of four non-English born players – Strauss, Trott, KP and Prior – and they won comfortably. This series they’ve struggled to fill their quota of four, they only had 3 in Brisbane and then Trott went home so they had to pick Stokes (New Zealand) to try to get close to the quota. They really stuffed the quota by dropping Prior in Melbourne and only playing two internationals – Stokes and KP – and look how the team performed. They had to do something to adress the slump so getting back to the quota of four non-English was paramount even if it did mean playing three debutantes: Gary Balance (Zimbabwe), Boyd Rankin (Northern Ireland) and Scott Borthwick.

Talking of Borthwick, what the hell was that selection all about? The guy bats number 3 for his county, Durham, above Ben Stokes who bats a t 5. He’s a batting allrounder, yet he was brought in as the teams spinner and batted at number 8. It reminded me of the times we played Cam White and Steve Smith as the teams spinner despite them being batsmen who bowled a bit. Also he only played becasue Monty had a calf strain but Monty was galloping around like flighty racehorse delivering drinks to his skipper on Day 1. What happened to that bloke Dale Kerrigan England used at the last test at The Oval? He was at least a spinner not a batsmen, even if he was wildly erratic. I suppose Borthwick was pretty erratic too, but did get a few cheap wickets. The same can’t be said for Boyd Rankin – that was a shocker of a debut ‘breaking down’ with cramp twice in one innings. At least he’s got his place in history – the final wicket that made it a 5-0 white wash.

A memroable debut for Boyd Rankin

England initially had a squad of 17 yet played 18 players and not Steve Finn who was in the initial squad of 17. I’m not sure who Finn pissed off in the England team but it must have been someone important. He played the first Test in England and got smacked around by Hadds and hasn’t played since. The Rig, Chris Tremlett, also managed just one Test in Brisabne and Rankin only played in the last Test in Sydney. It was a strange decision by England to bring all three really tall fast bowlers and basically not play them. They were the three amigos, the tallest drinks waiters and glove runners in world cricket. It’s like they brought them just to bowl in the nets and so Stuart Broad had some mates he could have a conversation with eye-to-eye.

Three Amigos: Chris Tremlett, Boyd Rankin and Steven Finn

Anyone that’s enough about how hopeless England are. We were great, roll on South Africa and bring on these one dayers. I’m sure England will really be up for the fight. Actually can you put $50 0n us winning the one dayers 5-0.

The Toss, No Swann & Who is Piers Morgan?

The toss. Well Boof had a meeting with Patsy Howard and Cricket Australia’s Director of Stragtegic Thinking and Game Awareness Implementation just before the Boxing Day Test. Boof looked a shattered man when he came out of the meeting as he’d been directed that he had to bowl first no matter what. The Strategic Thinking bloke had noticed a trend with tosses and batting first – In England we lost the toss in the first four tests and bowled first each time and ended up 3-0 down. Then we won the toss for the first three tests and batted first and won. The Strategy guy said with the series over the team needed to try to win bowling first, as we might lose the toss in South Africa or in any subsequent Test series in the future between now and the next Ashes in England in 2015. Boof was adamant we should keep the boot on the English throats and not give them a let up, he still has nightmares about losing the 1998 Ashes Test at the G and losing after Mark Taylor chose to bowl first. Anyway Patsy and the Strategic Thinking guru guy got in Pup’s ear and threatened to not let him go out on James Packer yacht in Sydney if he didn’t bowl first. That was enough for Pup to make sure he did the right thing.

Swann retired yeah well plenty of stories that he was going to be dropped so jumped before he was pushed but that’s not the real story. The real story was that after he lead the ‘sprinkler’ dance celebrating England’s victory at the MCG 3 years ago, members thought is was an absolute disgrace and successfully lobbied the MCC to ban Graeme Swann from ever being allowed back onto the hallowed turf of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The England team and Swann knew he couldn’t play in Melbourne and chose to handle it the way they did. I know it sounds implausible but it’s true.

Celebratory sprinkler dance lead by Graeme Swann

One bloke who probably should retire is Monty Panesar, he’s main strength at the moment seems to be stonewall batting at number 11 then shouldering arms to full tosses. His bowling was left arm medium pace and his fielding is as comical as ever – he must have the weakest throwing arm in world cricket and I’m including wicket keepers in that. Speaking of keepers England dropped Prior to replace him with another bloke who couldn’t bat or catch – it was like shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. England’s fourth day fielding display was village. In fact that’s probably being unkind to some village cricket teams.

We had a few players do well in this test, Chris Rogers scored a 60 and guided us home in the last innings with a fine century at his adopted home ground the MCG. Nathan Lyon took a five-fer and his 100th test wicket. He’s been bowling well but I think his greatest strength at the moment is the English blokes lack of awareness that Lyon is not Shane Warne. They lack awareness that he is a run of the mill off spinner not the greatest leg spinner in the history of cricket. Anyway it’s working well for us, so no complaints. But you can’t keep Mitchell Johnson down, he took a few wickets blowing away the tail as per usual plus he ran out Joe Root and caught Ian Bell – that was enough for him to win his third man of the match. Hmmm I wonder who will be man of the series?

Chris Rogers celebrates his second Test century

A fair old crowd rolled into the MCG: 270,000 across 4 days. Given some of the ground capacities in England they would have been lucky to get that across the 25 days of the Ashes. It got a bit windy on Day 3 at the G which did lead to some interesting sights, Mitch Johnson telling KP to f off and stop pulling away, Peter Siddle doing his strongman impersonation and Asad Rauf removing his hat to reveal a magnificent bouffont.

Interesting sights on a windy Day 3

The Barmy Army were in fine voice in Melbourne with their numbers swelled, by Christmas and New Year holiday makers spending up thousands of pounds to come and see a couple of dead rubbers. Couldn’t have worked out better as far as I’m concerned. I’m still not sure why they sing a hymn at the start of the days play – it’s got me beat how it has any relevance to cricket.

I think one of the Barmy Army who was pretty shitty about spending heaps of coin to watch a couple of dead rubbers is Piers Morgan – what the hell is with this bloke? He’s 40 odd years old and apparently fairly well known and a self proclaimed cricket nut. Yet I’ve never heard of him or heard him speak about cricket ever before. Anyway Boof got a request from Peirs Morgan that he wanted to face Mitchell Johnson. Boof said there was no effing way that was going to happen, we’ve got a Test match to play. It reminded me when Bono wanted to meet with John Howard when he was PM, Howard shot him down saying he was too busy governing the country to meet with rock stars. So Boof said Mitchell was too busy decimating English batsmen to meet some chat show host/X Factor judge. Brilliant!

Piers Morgan falls over due to a gentle half volley from Brett Lee

Anyway I was disappointed Channel 9 indulged this wanker and his self flagellation/promotion tour of Australia, but I suppose what do you expect from a network that employs James Brayshaw, Michael Slater and Shane Warne.Instead Chanel 9 stepped in to let Brett Lee loose on him, Lee is still a fine bowler but he hasn’t played in the Ashes since 2006/07. What did the whole incident prove? Not much, perhaps that old, fat, loudmouth Poms are shit at cricket – no wonder they draft in players from other Commonwealth countries. Maybe if Morgan was from South Africa he would have laid bat on ball. At least one of the Channel 9 commentators had the right take on Peirs Morgan – I’m with Chappelli on this one.

Chappelli gold

Anyway I have to go mate, I’ve got a fishing trip to squeeze in before the Sydney test. Can you put a motza on 5-0?